Just Saying

Thursday, 24 September 2015

Beyond the Indian-ness of it all...

It was not the first time that I was in the city of Hyderabad, yet, somehow, the
truth of its existence, the screaming passion and solidarity among its
people, came to me just yesterday evening during Ganesh Visharjan in our
township, while I walked the tail of an erupting crowd leading a
colossal idol of Ganesha on the deck of a tractor. In one word it was
sheer madness. Madness that bore the stifling cold evening with colors
of life, laughter and music.

It was a whole nation of people
intoxicated with excitement that flocked the streets, as Bappa, heaped
with garlands, strolled through the aisle of buildings. The DJ rolling
out the chartbusters. The thumbing blare of the speakers at once
striking fire in the hundreds of souls that danced through the
possession. Men, women, kids everyone seemed to wear their heart on
their sleeves. Saffron ribbons tied across their head, their faces
painted in colors, as they let themselves drown in the celebration.
Their nonchalance, for a moment, defeating the world of worries we
otherwise carry around ourselves.

Amid the magnificent glory of it all, what touched me more than
anything else, was watching a Swedish lady drench herself in the hues of
the festival. The very festival and its customary rituals, whom I
believed to be ours. Something exclusively Indian. But watching her
gyrate in the middle of the crazy crowd, with hundreds of bodies and
limbs pressed together through the sweat of celebrations along the
cypress lined roads of our compound, it was a wonderful, wonderful
sight. Her blonde traces swaying against her radiant face, like the soft
beams of dawn on an ice capped Kanchenjunga, every time she raised her
hand into the electric air and broke into the exceptionally Indian
‘thumkas’. Rockets were fired into the night sky and they erupted into
flaming flowers. Fistful colors floated in the wind above our heads, as I
stood in the shower of it all, feeling the music echo in my veins with a
sense of oneness. It was a sacred feeling of humanity that crossed
through me amid all the chaos and insanity of this world.

For
over six hours the possession continued to roll through the various
lanes of of Rain Tree Park, with women coming out onto the streets with
coconuts and diyas lit over a stainless steel thali to perform the
religious aarti, the bidding adieu to the lord and promising, praying
for his grand return the next year. Every soul present there, lent their
voice to the thundering chants of ‘Ganapati Bappa Morya, Agle Baras Tu
Jaldi Aa’. Their faces alight in a tender mix of joy and sorrow. It was
like a smile whose reason was a tear. And today morning as I jogged
through the quiet lanes, the mist feeling like frozen vapor against my
face and saw the empty mandap, the confetti bursts splattered on the
roads, it was their unanimous smile above everything else, that made
me realize that being Indian is more than just a nationality. It is
perhaps binding the universe together with a craziness called love.